1829.] 
of the same party. The phraseology, which 
from an impulse of impatience, without 
meaning to charge hypocrisy upon all who 
use it, one is tempted to describe shortly as 
cant, can be tolerated only by those, who 
by habitually adopting it, forget—not the 
bad taste of it, for that is an inferior con- 
sideration—but the sense of mockery it ex- 
cites in others; and surely it is no sign of 
a sound understanding to practise what in 
the main is but the shiboleth of a party. 
Nor are the sentiments expressed by this 
phraseology less revolting, though more 
from their implications than their actual 
and immediate force. Mr. Goode—the 
father, we mean—has occasion in a letter to 
speak of the effects of his preaching—“ it 
is the Lord’s doing—the glory is his—we 
are but earthen vessels,’ &c. Now phrases 
of this kind are offensive; first, because 
they are borrowed ones, and so scarcely 
prompted by the speaker’s feelings—there 
is, besides, affectation, and arrogance in 
them—and in the mildest estimate are but 
the prating of a parrot; or if they be allowed 
to express the feelings of the party using 
them, they are still offensive, because they 
imply: a sense of overweaningness, as if 
ey were called upon to exclaim, ‘‘ we are 
en of like passions with yourselves’’—it 
a sort of mock-modesty, as if others could 
mistake them for any thing but earthen 
vessels. But, generally, the language of 
evangelical teachers is offensive—for it 
everywhere implies a personal superiority— 
a consciousness of something like exclu- 
sive favour—a pretension to a something 
approaching the prophetic or apostolic au- 
thority,—while congregations are addressed 
as poor, unintelligent animals, who have 
not access to the same means of enlighten- 
ment with themselves, but must depend 
upon their privileged and inspired instruc- 
tors for the knowledge of what is as im- 
portant to the one as the other. 
One of Mr. Goode’s letters begins in this 
way—“ TI am happy to inform you that 
through the goodness of oun God, I got 
safe to Margate on Monday afternoon,” &c. 
Here is the exclusive tone. In another— 
“the weather is somewhat pleasanter, 
which is very desirable, if it please God,” — 
which if it is not mock, is ostentatious 
piety. Mrs. Goode’s clothes caught fire, 
Mr. Goode was fortunate enough to 
escue her from destruction. Of this “ pecu- 
jar dispensation of mercy,’’ as the son 
les it, Mr. Goode thus writes to a friend, 
_—* Thad not pulled off my great coat in 
the passage, when I heard most violent 
‘shrieks up in our bed-room, and, running 
up stairs, saw Mrs. Goode coming out of 
the door all in a blaze, and running up into 
the nursery, where was only the nurse and 
the infant; besides which, she must have 
been so totally in flames before she got 
there, that it would have been put out with 
great difficulty. I laid hold of her, pulled 
her back into the room, and instantly rolled 
her-up in the carpet, which extinguished 
Domestic and Foreign. 
663 
the flame, but not till burnt much in her 
back and right arm. Had I not come in 
that minute, she must have been burnt to 
death ; they were all in confusion, and there 
is little probability they would have taken 
the proper method to smother the fire— 
perhaps the whole house might have been 
set on fire—indeed there is no calculating the 
probable consequences. ’Z'was most evi- 
dently the Lord’s hand, and it requires,”’ &c. 
“ Had I not come she must have been 
burnt”’—that is, if no other means of rescue 
had been present, but if any direct interpo- 
sition be meant,—if any extraordinary 
sources be supposed to be put into activity— 
one mean may well be supposed as ready as 
another, and if he had been absent, another 
might have been at hand—or the accident 
not have occurred at all. ‘’T'was evidently 
the Lord’s hand’’—so, it must be supposed, 
surely, was the calamity. But such inter- 
preters of events seem always to suppose 
the event is appointed to bring about the 
interposition; and so it may be, for any 
thing we can establish to the contrary, but 
it must surely to most persons appear to be 
an odd conclusion to come to without dis- 
tinct evidence, and of such evidence we can 
imagine none. 
Mr. Goode was, no doubt, an excellent 
man—of very considerable theological at- 
tainments—of great zeal and indefatigable 
effort—tive sermons a week for many years 
is proof enough, but of no very enlightened 
benevolence—of no very enlarged informa- 
tion—of no free or liberal inquiry—of little 
sympathy or concern for any thing out of 
his own exclusive circle, and less tolerance 
for other’s opinions, for he had no distrust 
of his own, and scarcely can be said to 
know those of others, or be capable of esti- 
mating them with any thing like an un- 
biassed judgment. His horror for them, 
however, was, of course, not the less vehe- 
ment. From a child he was remarkable 
for the phrases and the practices of piety, 
originating, we may suppose, in the habits 
of his friends, and their connection with 
dissenting ministers. He was educated 
also by a dissenter of some provincial dis- 
tinction in his day, Bull, of Newport Pag- 
nell. These phrases and practices grew up 
with him—never suffered any suspension or 
interruption, and were mixed up, in his 
mind, irresistibly, with essentials, and un- 
distinguishably so; and the absence or dis- 
use of them, in others, was to him, inevi- 
tably, as it is to thousands, indicative of 
the absence of all vital religion. Soon 
after his ordination he became a curate to 
Romaine, to whose living of Blackfriars, 
after some years, on the petition of the 
parish to Lord Loughborough, he succeed- 
ed,—which place was, of course, the chief 
seat of his professional exertions. 
He was a conspicuous member in all com- 
mittees and societies for charitable and mis- 
sionary objects, and was, we believe, the 
jirst, who made preaching tours to raise 
contributions for these purposes. In a time 
